Accidental Homesteader
…a funny thing happened on the way to the bar
The Best Cooking Book in the World
I like food. I like cooking. I have a zillion cookbooks from the basic (The Joy of Cooking) to the really really not basic (The Modernist Cuisine at Home). But I’ve found one book that is my go-to for cooking these days.
You see, I’m not a fan of recipes, per se. I get that I need to use them when I bake, since that’s more of a science than an art – not surprisingly, the biologist husband is the baker in the family. But mainly I just put stuff together and apply heat, So when I found The Flavor Bible, I fell in love. Instead of recipes, which make me think of…
It gives you lists. Of stuff that goes togtether. Say you have a pile of gorgeous raspberries from the farmer’s market, and you want to make the best dessert ever. You open to the raspberry page.
It lists a bunch of things that go with it. So there’s plain text, which is “yeah, it’ll work.” There’s bold, which is “Dude.” Bold caps, which is “Duuuude.” And bold caps with an asterisk, which is “No, srsly DUDE!”
So if white chocolate was not an abomination unto the lord, then you would pair the two. Seriously, white chocolate is down there with Duke Basketball and itchy sweaters.
Note that right above Raspberries, you have ramps. So this is a great book for “hey what’s this” buys at the farmer’s market.
I use this often to figure out the seasoning for the meat, that goes with whatever vegetable that I have, and voila, excellent dinner.
Buy this book. Give this book to your friends. Use it. Read your cookbooks for inspiration – and if you do, might I suggest Tom Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef.
Also, just because it is so freaking cool… this is what we have up in our kitchen.
From the following scientific paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00196.
Accidental Homesteader 